


Break In

by ElapsedSpiral



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: M/M, Mind Palace
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-21
Updated: 2012-04-21
Packaged: 2017-11-04 02:10:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 524
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/388525
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ElapsedSpiral/pseuds/ElapsedSpiral
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"There has been a break in. Sherlock Holmes knows this because he is a detective.</p><p>He steps into the living room and studies the scene in silence. Others would see the jumble and disorder, he sees the change. He makes a record, folding down a finger with each. B flat, B flat minor, Lithium, Beryllium."</p><p>(Warning: this ficlet is a bit odd. Sure you'll get what I'm driving at though. Don't want to spoil it in the summary. Whole nature of this fic is also a spoiler for HoB. Kinda).</p>
            </blockquote>





	Break In

There has been a break in. Sherlock Holmes knows this because he is a detective.

He steps into the living room and studies the scene in silence. Others would see the jumble and disorder, he sees the change. He makes a record, folding down a finger with each. B flat, B flat minor, Lithium, Beryllium.

There, on the carpet by the hearth. His cigarette ashes, small scattered piles of crumbling white-grey swept into a dustpan.

The smell of tepid water replaced with ground coffee. Columbian. Norte de Valle, methylbenzoylecgonine, benzoylmethylecgonine. C17H21NO4. Bogotá and Bucaramanga, pleasant, heavy on the tongue. Two for the price of one, thought you’d like to try it-

Folds fingers: C. C minor. Phalange, metacarpal.

This has been the work of one individual. Sherlock Holmes knows this because he is a detective.

They have been here repeatedly. They were careful at first then grew ambitious.

Here, on the desk. A bottle of formaldehyde (CH2O, Ed Gein, Damien Hirst). Through the mustard yellow-green liquid in its jar he sees, warped and curving, the miniature model of a globe patiently skirting a marbled, gleaming sun. On the window sill behind rests _Hampshire_ and _UCL_ and _5th Northumberland Fusiliers_. Small and unassuming they cast their shadows on a well-researched paper on the tropane alkaloids of atropa belladonna L.

The curtains have been opened and light floods the corners of the living room. There is no cocaine-old-school-tie-words-with-mummy-what-would-you-know-about-sex there now.

Folds fingers, forms fist: haymaker, combination, glass jaw.

This has been an inside job. Sherlock Holmes knows this because he is a detective.

Impossible eliminated. He has all the information (and whatever remains must be true). He makes the connection.

He’s frantic heart (attack, disease, defect of the-) and wild eye (London, European Young Engineers, Suffolk). He scans the bookcase and it’s _missing_.

Sherlock Holmes starts pulling, tearing loose volumes – _March's Advanced Organic Chemistry: Reactions, Mechanisms and Structure 4th edition_ , _Clinical Forensic Medicine, 3rd edition_ , _Bach Sonata No. 2 in A Minor for Solo Violin_ \- and it's _missing_. Out of the living room, into his bedroom (empty, cold). He studies in silence.

There. On the bed side table. Did he move it? Was this him?

Sherlock Holmes is better than Dupin, Poirot, Marlowe. But he can’t remember, can’t remember moving the-

Small wooden box. Plain and unremarkable.

Its hinge has swung wide like wings, tipped on its side and the contents are spilling out, liquid, onto the floor. They drip down, circle his slippers, slip beneath the bed, make a nest there. Breed.

The liquid talks: amazing, fantastic, brilliant. Friend.

And, reflected, specular: a smile.

He knows how it was done, this crime. This break-in. He knows this because he is-

Sherlock Holmes returns to the living room and considers the doorway of 221B. The locks – a padlock, deadlock, mortise, combination; sarcasm, cruelty, isolation, withdrawal, anything he could find - have been shot out (crack shot). But that’s no matter when the door has long since been taken down. Sun pours in.

Sherlock Holmes steps back through the doorway to a cup of Columbian coffee at his elbow and a smile from his blogger (friend, colleague, burglar).


End file.
